Charlie Carver has experienced internalised femmephobia

The Desperate Housewives star also admitted he had fears about his masculinity

2018-05-21

Charlie Carver has admitted he has experienced “internalised femmephobia”.

The Desperate Housewives star came out back in 2016 and in a recent interview with Advocate, the actor admitted his personal feelings of masculinity have changed.

He said: “I think that that is something I hope we are beginning to contend with more deliberately and compassionately now.

“I experienced a lot of internalised femmephobia growing up. I kind of grew up at this major inflection point in gay history where I got to see marriage equality happen as a young person, state by state and then on a national level.

“As I’ve grown up with these major historical changes, my feelings about myself and my masculinity have changed and [I’ve] kind of grown with it.

“I think what’s really exciting about being a young person, about young gay, queer LGBTQI+ culture now is sort of queerification of gender altogether.”

Carver – who was Attitude’s Bachelor of the Year last year – went on to say how he has had “some fears” about his own masculinity.

“I hope that it is through things, whether it’s Drag Race or a larger cultural conversation that’s happening that this sort of femmephobia does go away, or change,” he added.

“I’ve experienced some fears on my own taking a look at my own masculinity, I go, ‘How much of this is a construct and how much of my masculinity is quintessentially me or mine?’

“I hope that it’s just an ongoing conversation and that ultimately everybody feels they are able to express or be exactly as they’re meant to.

“You don’t want to play the sort of feeling that displays a refraction of gay psychology into different types, because I think ultimately we have to choose these characters as individuals, and the poetic that comes out of that are exciting and telling and can be interpreted in various ways.

“But, it’s interesting to see in this play the sort of relationship dynamics and what that has to do with gender and presentation.”